To improve suppression of background noise, headsets are often equipped with gradient microphones and/or multiple with microphones with beamforming, preferably mounted near the user's mouth on a microphone arm. Unfortunately, such microphone systems are very sensitive to pop noise—as well as to wind noise and handling noise.
Pop noise may be suppressed by external windscreens, made e.g. of foam, and/or by moving the microphone away from the mouth. Effective windscreens are generally large and bulky, and moving the microphone reduces the voice-to-background-noise ratio—in particular at lower frequencies. During phone calls, pop noise may stress the far-end participant considerately.